


Test of Faith

by antivan-beau (sheepsinthenight)



Series: Rootless Refuge [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, The Gauntlet, Urn of Sacred Ashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheepsinthenight/pseuds/antivan-beau
Summary: “Begone, spirit.” A weary smile curled her lips. “I will not play your games.”But the Guardian continued. “Your companions took up this quest to end the Blight. To aid the Grey Wardens. You had your own reasons, selfish ones, for joining them. Have you ever felt guilt that none of your companions know your true purpose?”In which Morrigan and Beatrice wrestle with unspoken things.
Relationships: Morrigan/Female Warden (Dragon Age)
Series: Rootless Refuge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731037
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	Test of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> I made a semi-joke post awhile back called "DAO companions ranked by how deliciously angsty their Urn of Sacred Ashes Guardian questions are." Morrigan ranked lowest because... she actually doesn't get a question! Peeved at the writers for missing this opportunity to take an interest in her interior life. This fic started as a writing exercise to give Morrigan a question/dialogue that felt in-alignment with canon, then have her deal with the interpersonal consequences.
> 
> (Also because Leliana's question goes SO HARD, and my Warden is too earnest and straight-forward _not_ to have a follow-up conversation with her about it.)

“You’re saying I made it up for… for the attention? I did not! I know what I believe!” 

_Believe, believe, believe…_

Leliana’s protest filled the antechamber then faded. Anger curled her lip and tightened her fists at her sides.

In the flickering torchlight, Beatrice watched her face. The Grey Warden’s thoughts seemed to bubble up slowly, like those dreams where she fought darkspawn in air as thick as water. Had life in Lothering left Leliana restless? Was her vision just another bard-spun tale? Were the tears glittering in her eyes indignation or shame?

Beatrice knew she should say something. At any other time, she could be comic or comforting, wise or winsome. Under the impassive gaze of Andraste’s Guardian, words filled her mouth like dried leaves. Morrigan’s gloved fingers, absurdly laced with her gauntleted hand, twitched tighter.

Leliana took a deliberate inhale, then stepped back to rejoin her companions.

Beside her, Alistair looked drawn. Hours of battle left him barely on the conscious side of exhaustion. The Guardian’s question about Duncan had picked open a wound that had barely begun to scab. Morrigan’s ironclad poise was slipping; too many lyrium potions left her legs trembling and her gaze half-focused. Leliana alone looked ready for another fight, but like reckless anger would guide her arrows before careful tactics. Everyone smelled like blood and snow.

Beatrice felt worse than they looked. Across her shoulders, her armor was heavy as stone. Despite her gauntlets, the callouses on her palms had torn, half-healed, and torn again. Her knees ached. Her arms were aflame from hours of swinging her two-hander. Only adrenaline and the nearness of Morrigan kept her numb to the worst of the pain. Just as long as she could grip a sword hilt, she would carry on.

She’d told herself “just” over and over again. Since Denerim _(since Ostagar?)_ it had become her mantra. Just find Brother Genitivi in the city. Just travel to Haven on the promise of one letter. Just explore a forgotten ruin. Just fight through a hundred lunatic cultists. Just slay a dragon.

And when they’d finally arrived, an impossibly ancient spirit looked into her eyes and spoke the name Rendon Howe. At the top of the world, perhaps a breath away from Andraste’s ashes, he’d asked her if she’d failed her parents. To answer had taken the last of her strength. Like the spirit that confronted them, she felt hollowed out: animated by a duty she could enact yet barely recall. 

But when the Guardian addressed Alistair, Morrigan had softly reached for her hand. Beatrice kept her grip loose and awkward, not just from the bulk of their gloves. Any touch Morrigan initiated felt like the appearance of some rare bird, like tightening the space between them might surprise her into alighting. One outstretched hand was the tether Beatrice used to pull herself back to her body, back inside the torchlit hall, back to the swaying, spent _here._

Here and now, the Guardian turned his gaze toward the only untested member of their group.

Morrigan released Beatrice’s hand to cross her arms over her chest. The furred mantle of her cloak pooled around her shoulders. Her face was beautiful for its airy defiance. Although spattered with old blood, her lip rogue was careful as ever, eye shadow as careless. The lyrium coursing through her made her fingers twitch against her bicep, but her gold eyes danced.

A flutter of strange, incredulous gratitude welled in Beatrice’s stomach. Morrigan’s pride could wither flowers or move mountains. Within this hallowed temple, she would declare Andraste a fable and mock the spirit to its helmeted face. Even uprooted, a Witch of the Wilds was profoundly grounding.

The Guardian spoke with a voice that echoed from a distance, yet arrived as close as their thoughts. “And you, Morrigan, Flemmeth’s daughter… what - ”

“Begone, spirit.” A weary smile curled her lips. “I will not play your games.”

Had she been less exhausted, Beatrice might have laughed. For perhaps the first time, she felt like she understood Morrigan well enough to predict her. The feeling lasted about ten seconds.

The Guardian continued. “Your companions took up this quest to end the Blight. To aid the Grey Wardens. You had your own reasons, selfish ones, for joining them. Have you ever felt guilt that none of your companions know your true purpose?”

Beatrice had rarely seen Morrigan caught off-guard. Yet there was a quirk to her brows and set to her jaw that the Warden couldn’t otherwise name.

Morrigan’s reply was slow, deliberate. “On the contrary. They all know why I am here. ‘Twas my mother’s will.”

“Do you believe that truth sufficient?”

“Why do you speak of guilt, spirit?” Her voice was suddenly sharp. “What is its purpose? Will guilt resurrect the ones they care for? Will guilt ever repel a darkspawn blade? Is guilt necessary to pass through your door?”

A pause: as long as an age and as short as a breath. Then the Guardian rumbled, “I will respect your wishes.”

They all felt the shift in the dusty temple air. The door before them swung open on silent hinges. Blue light shone from the room beyond.

His serene regard was inscrutable. “The way is open. Good luck. And may you find what you seek.”

Beatrice’s eyes weren’t on the doors. She stared at Morrigan’s straight spine and thrown-back shoulders, at the tension radiating through her layered cloak and robes.

Morrigan had told Beatrice once that her face revealed everything she was thinking. She hoped her wide-eye incomprehension, her bitten and worried lower lip, the flex of her fingers, could communicate what her tongue wouldn’t. Incredulity - none of them knew Morrigan’s true purpose? Solidarity - Beatrice, Alistair, and Leliana had all confronted things they hadn’t intended to speak aloud. Acceptance - that she wanted answers but wouldn’t demand them. Especially because right now, she wanted answers less than she wanted to hold Morrigan’s hand again.

Morrigan ignored her, in the pointed way only Morrigan could. 

So Beatrice did as she’d always done: stepped forward with her companions in her wake.

The room beyond was frigid. Frost climbed up the stone walls in tight spirals. In alcoves on either side, there shimmered ghostly figures: male and female, human and elven. Each silent sentinel had had a vacant, neutral expression until the party drew closer. Then, as if the nearness of living beings breathed life into them, their faces opened like flowers. Urgent and emotional, they offered their stories.

Morrigan broke away to examine the far door.

Alistair, Leliana, and Beatrice moved from spirit to spirit. Their riddles were no match for a lay Sister and a Templar-in-training. Beatrice might have helped, but she found herself drifting, barely aware of their words. The wind outside groaned and whistled. She imagined soft snowfall covering cultists’ bodies, cloaking the dull scales of a dead dragon. 

Her vision swam, and she blinked back a white haze of exhaustion.

_“Have you ever felt guilt that none of your companions know your true purpose?”_

Before them, a spirit smiled broadly to find its riddle answered. It delivered its name and faded from view.

Alistair spoke into the silence. His breath clouded the cold air. “So… Leliana, about your vision - ”

“I really do not think now is the time,” Leliana said briskly. She was already moving to the next spirit: a robed and bearded man, closest to the far door.

Alistair followed at her heel. “The Guardian knew exactly how I felt. So it must have known for you, too.”

“It was a test of faith,” Leliana snapped. “What would test you the most? The truth. What would test me the most? A lie. Picking at my conviction. But I know what happened.”

_“Do you believe that truth sufficient?”_

Beatrice was watching Morrigan. The mage stood a few paces away, passing a hand through a spirit’s shoulder with almost academic interest. It wavered where she touched it, like the taut side of a tent snapping in the wind. 

Morrigan looked up when she felt the Warden’s gaze. Her gold hawks’ eyes assessed everything and revealed nothing. Beatrice looked away first, back toward the entrance door. Then she froze.

Alistair and Leliana drew nearer to Morrigan to speak with the apparition beside her. The spirit’s words, their speculation over the riddle’s answer, Morrigan’s sarcastic commentary on their pontificating: all fell away. 

Standing in an empty alcove was Teyrn Bryce Cousland.

He didn’t glow blue like the Guardian. She couldn’t see the stone behind him like the spirits from Andraste’s life. He wore the tunic and breeches he donned when he went out riding. There were stitches at his elbow where she’d once mended his torn sleeve. His eyes had the laugh lines she knew.

Beatrice wondered if she was dreaming or if she was dead. Perhaps she’d failed the Guardian’s question and had been struck down. Perhaps she’d been eaten by the dragon, or impaled by a hurlock days ago.

Her father took a step toward her. “My dearest child…”

The last time Teyrn Cousland had seen her cry, he’d been able to lift her onto his shoulders. He wouldn’t see her cry today. But Beatrice couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat.

She glanced back toward her companions. Their conversation about the riddle had progressed from ‘discussion’ to ‘argument.’ None of them spared her a glance.

“You know that I am gone,” said her father, and she snapped her eyes back to his face. Unconsciously, she took a step closer. “And that all your prayers and wishes will not bring me back. Pup… I know you miss me, but my death and my life no longer have a hold on you.”

Her mind left her while her feet carried her forward. She reached for him. Impossibly, he took her hands into his own. His fingers looked strange around her heavy gauntlets, but his touch had weight and warmth. 

Her father’s smile shone with pride and sorrow. “You have such a long road ahead of you, and you must be prepared. And so I leave this in your hands… I know you will do great things with it.”

And then he was gone. Beatrice wasn’t sure she’d blinked, but suddenly, only the stone wall stood before her. Her fingers were laced as if she’d been praying. She opened her hands to find a silver, mirrored amulet. Its chain pooled in her cupped palms. Clearly, she had died, or gone completely mad.

With trembling arms, she brought the amulet over her head and tucked it beneath her armor. She pulled her auburn braid out from under it, so the chain lay against her neck.

_“Why do you speak of guilt, spirit? What is its purpose?”_

“Beatrice?”

Alistair’s voice shook her from her reverie. He watched from across the room, his expression twin to the curious caution worn by Leliana. Morrigan’s face was impassive. Had any of them seen what she’d seen? 

Evidently, they had solved the final riddle. No spirits remained. The door forward was open.

Beatrice had to smile. “You know, you’re allowed to walk through a door without me.”

Alistair shrugged. “Things being what they are, I prefer to follow.”

_“Will guilt resurrect the ones they care for? Will guilt ever repel a darkspawn blade?”_

Past the doors, a huge, mirrored shield hung on the wall. They took the left path of a branched hallway. The room beyond was dark and silent, save for the muted howl of mountain wind.

From the shadows, a woman’s shape shimmered into view. More spirits from Andraste’s life? More riddles?

The figure wore steel plate armor, not Tevinter robes. Ferelden steel plate. _Beatrice’s_ steel plate. She recognized the rust spots at her knees and the dent at her shoulder from a hurlock’s war hammer, before her eyes snapped up to registered her own face staring back at her.

The coldness of her own expression startled her: her clenched jaw, her furrowed brows, her dispassionate eyes. The spirit touched the familiar, worn handle of the longsword on her back, drawing it with the deft ease of eight-hours-ago Beatrice. Then she leveled it to charge.

In a breath, Beatrice had her own blade off her back to block the incoming strike. Their swords sparked on contact, solid weight and force behind both blows. Steel’s clang echoed throughout the room. Beatrice looked into her own face and felt, distantly beneath her adrenaline, the seep of terror bleeding into the edges of her awareness.

A white bolt of pain lanced through her shoulder. She screamed. The shaft of an arrow protruded from a break in her armor. It had Leliana’s fletching.

Behind her, she felt her companions pour into the room.

Beatrice swung her sword in a skittering arc to disentangle their blades. The spirit opened with a ruthless, perfect cut across her body, which Beatrice awkwardly swatted aside. Her wounded shoulder had become lead. The spirit shuffled forward, testing a few feints in the air as Beatrice watched for the real strike. When it came, she deflected low, sweeping their blades downward. The spirit countered exactly as Beatrice would have, following with a low strike across her legs. The bruising force of the blow resounded against her greaves. The cross-strike to the other side of her legs shattered one of her knees in an explosion of pain.

Then she saw the spirit’s body, _her_ body, convulse and straighten. Its back arched as its feet hovered above the ground. A shimmering field of light surrounded it as it screamed Beatrice’s scream.

The Warden turned over her shoulder to see Morrigan, staff calmly outstretched as she worked her spell. She twisted one hand dispassionately in the air. Beatrice tore her eyes away from the mage to watch her own body fall limp. 

_That_ was how her posture collapsed. _That_ was sound it would make when her sword clattered to the ground. _That_ was the way it would look when her glassy eyes stared upward. When she died, would she become a hollow pile of armor, too?

_“Is guilt necessary to pass through your door?”_

Beatrice's vision darkened from burgundy to black as she slipped into unconsciousness.


End file.
